


what thou seest

by too_much_in_the_sun



Category: Journey's End - Sherriff, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, F/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Suicide Attempt, World War I, cosmic horror as a metaphor for trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-10-15 08:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17524934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: Revelation 1:19: Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.Dennis Stanhope survives the war, quits drinking, and makes some new friends - with a few detours along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic would not exist without Tumblr users missanthropicprinciple, who introduced me to Colin Clive (and by extension to this play), and mighty-meerkat, who informed me that Sherriff considered writing a sequel about Stanhope's recovery process. I am in their debt.

PROLOGUE.

Stanhope comes back up to awareness through a soupy darkness that is nothing at all like sleep. His first thought is bitter disappointment that he is not dead - surely death would be less painful than wherever he is? - immediately followed by disbelief as he becomes more aware of his surroundings.

He's in a field hospital.

It's possible he could be somewhere else - somewhere else that also happens to smell like carbolic soap, damp earth, and old blood (the latter two of which have become distressingly familiar, almost nostalgic, when combined) - but he's fairly sure it's a field hospital. Will wonders never cease.

He opens his eyes cautiously, expecting early-spring sunshine filtered through canvas, perhaps some birds singing in the distance. What he gets is, indeed, canvas, but backlit instead by a gloomy, foggy kind of light. And instead of birds, somewhere he hears faint voices, too indistinct to even make out what language they’re speaking.

There’s a man sitting nearby, virtually at his bedside; middle-aged, long-faced, absorbed in a novel, and - Stanhope’s observation of him slams to an abrupt stop - _not_ wearing the proper uniform. His tunic’s the wrong color, for one thing, deep blue with red trim, terribly familiar -

“I say,” Stanhope says weakly, “where _is_ this?”

The man doesn’t so much as look up from his novel, though he does stop turning the pages. “You're in the _Lazarett_ at Metz, and before you ask, that’s a kind of hospital for prisoners of war.” His English is perfectly fluent, but his accent is distinctly American.

“Prisoners of war?” Stanhope repeats dully. The last thing he remembers is going up the steps of the dugout, just after Raleigh -

“That’s us,” the other man says, cutting inconsiderately through his muddled recollections. He leans forward in his chair, a cold-blooded species of interest flaring to life in his eyes. “You don’t recognize me at all, do you?”

“No.” Despite the fact that he's lying down, he's beginning to feel distinctly light-headed.

“No, of course you don’t,” the American says in a soft voice. “The name's Carter. We’ve had this conversation three times in the last two months, and I expect we’ll be having it again.”

Two _months_?

He doesn’t realize he’s spoken aloud until Carter answers him. “Oh, yes,” he says. “You’ve been here a little longer than that, but honestly - who’s counting?”

“ _I_ am,” he says, with as much dignity as he can muster (admittedly not much). Oh, Christ, that’s two months’ worth of paperwork he’s missed. Most importantly, he realizes, he’s missed writing a letter of condolence to the Raleighs, and what _will_ they be thinking of him by now -

Without really considering it, he tries to sit up, and is promptly stopped by a bolt of pain so forceful he doesn’t immediately recognize it as such - a terrible pressure across his chest like the concussion of an exploding shell, swiftly followed by a harsh grey tide that sweeps him under with no warning at all.

o0o

Carter is more subdued when Stanhope returns to himself -- possibly because the first thing he says is “I remember you.”

“Pity,” says Carter. “That takes all the fun out of it. Don't think you’ll get rid of me that easily, though. Care for some water?

This is humiliating, but it’s not as though things can get much worse.

“Yes,” he says. “I would.”

Carter’s hands are strangely gentle as he holds the battered tin cup to Stanhope’s lips and helps him drink. The problem is that Carter keeps talking while he does it.

The medical staff, Stanhope learns, have been expecting him to die virtually from the moment he arrived, but have thus far been disappointed. As far as Carter can make out, they can’t even decide on a single diagnosis for him, though the most likely possibility seems to be a chest injury complicated by pneumonia.

“You ought to be flattered,” says Carter. “That means they’re paying attention to you.” He sets the cup down on a rickety-looking side table. “Took ‘em all of five minutes to diagnose me, but they’re keeping a closer eye on you.”

“And you’re an... orderly?” Stanhope tries. Something about Carter feels wrong, out of place. Something strange in his eyes.

Carter’s laugh is a sharp, ghastly sound. “Me? No. I’m a patient, same as you. A prisoner, really.”

“Then what are you doing here? In this ward?” Lounging around with a book without a care in the world, as if he were home in his own sitting room.

“Convalescing, allegedly. Keeping out of the way until I can get myself sent home, mostly.” Carter sits back in his chair.

“Where’s home for you?” Stanhope cautiously looks around the tent, which is eerily deserted – the other beds are empty, and there’s no one here but the two of them. “And where is everybody?”

What Stanhope hears is “All dead – all but you”, and the thought that comes to him is absurd, but has its own twisted logic: he is dead, and this is clearly Hell. So he quite naturally responds, “ _What_?”

“You’re in the influenza ward,” Carter says, in a measured tone that indicates he’s repeating himself. “Everyone else who was here is dead, except you. Though I expect there’s no shortage of new cases, so you won’t be alone for long. The orderlies have had their hands full shifting people around.”

Stanhope breathes in deeply – a sharp pain stabs through his chest as he does – and says, “Tell me what’s happened. _Now_.”

“Take it easy,” Carter says mildly. “’Flu’s been going through the whole camp for the last week and a half. You were one of the first to get sick, but evidently you’re well enough now.”

“No,” Stanhope says, as firmly as he can. “That’s not it. I would have come here with whatever was left of my company. Where are they? What’s happened to them?”

Carter raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “That’s a long story, Stanhope, my friend, and I don’t know nearly as much of it as I’d like to.”

“How do you know my name?” Stanhope says.

“We’ve been introduced,” Carter says tiredly. “Believe me, we’ve been introduced. There’s one fellow here who might be able to answer all your questions, but he’s in another ward. I can try, I suppose.”

Stanhope searches his memory. Everything seems foggy – the names of the men he’s come to know so well elude his grasp, become ghosts in his mind. “Trotter?” he says finally. “It must be Trotter.”

“Yes, that’s his name. He’s quite all right,” Carter adds, “or as ‘all right’ as can be expected.”

“I’d like to see him, then.”

Carter sighs. “Well, I suppose I can bring him over here to tell you in person if you’d like. The nurses like me well enough, and things are in such a muddle, that I might be able to get away with sneaking him in.”

“Yes. Bring him here.” The act of giving directions makes him feel a little steadier, brings him into known territory.

“All right,” Carter says dubiously. “It’s not far – but look, don’t wander off or anything, or the head nurse will – well, she’ll do something unpleasant.”

Stanhope takes a cautious breath – the stabbing pain is less severe this time, but it still feels as if there’s a heavy weight lying across his chest. Overall, he feels weak as a kitten. Not that he’d say that to this Carter fellow. “I won’t go anywhere.”

“Right.” Carter stands up. “I won’t be long.” He walks away without so much as a good-bye.

Stanhope lays there trying to breathe as shallowly as he possibly can, staring up at the canvas ceiling of the tent, assessing the probable extent of his injuries. He feels generally weak and bruised, and his chest pulses with a pain alternatingly dull and sharp, but that could well be the 'flu working on him. But that can’t be all that’s wrong – if this American is telling the truth, there’s something the matter with his memory as well. Perhaps a concussion, or some other disruption of nervous function.

He can hear the very end of a conversation as Carter returns, with Trotter lagging behind. Specifically he hears Trotter saying, “-at _all_? D’you suppose he’ll remember me? If he doesn’t-”

“Oh, he’ll remember you, I have no doubt,” Carter says, as the two of them come close enough for Stanhope to see them without trying to sit up. Trotter looks very much as Stanhope remembers him, though a little thinner than he was, and walking with the aid of a crutch. But his face is still the same, round and a little pink, and he doesn’t seem to have been wounded anywhere else that Stanhope can see.

The way Trotter looks at him, though – it’s as if he’s seen a ghost.

“Hullo, skipper,” he says, settling himself gratefully into the chair. “Good to see you again.”

“Good to see you as well,” Stanhope says, bitterly aware of how weak he must appear, lying here in bed unable to even sit up. It is no way for a captain to be seen.

“He wants to know what’s happened to the rest of the company,” Carter says to Trotter. “The whole story of how you came here. I offered to tell him what I knew, but I figured you were really the man for it.”

“I wouldn’t say I know the _whole_ story,” Trotter says pleasantly.

“Never mind that,” Carter says. “I’m sure you know more than I do.”

“You’re too kind.” Trotter clears his throat, and begins to speak.

* * *

 THE ADVENTURE AT ST. QUENTIN.

Here's what Trotter recalls:

He has just sent for Stanhope, and is waiting for him to come. Raleigh’s blood - or someone’s blood, at least - is drying on his hands and under his nails. Amazing, how much of the stuff a man has in him.

Stanhope’s just coming up into the open air - looking rattled and not at all himself - when Trotter hears the whine of an incoming shell, entirely too close for comfort. Stanhope goes on standing there looking dazed, and without a second thought, Trotter grabs him by the upper arm and drags him down into the freezing mud.

Somewhere very close by, the shell explodes. “You know how it is,” he’ll say to Carter later. “You just pick up the pieces as best you can.”

Easier said than done.

He opens his eyes; his ears are ringing. Stanhope, lying there limply an arms-length away, has his eyes shut, and Trotter’s started to prepare himself for the worst when, eyes still closed, he starts to talk.

“Trotter,” Stanhope says, his voice oddly strangled-sounding, “if you ever lay a hand on me again, I’ll-” He breaks off.

“You’ll what?” He’s still trying to get his breath back. Much too close for comfort, that one. He sees, without a hint of surprise, that the tunnel leading down into the dugout has vanished. Collapsed.

“Never mind.” Stanhope’s voice is soft, dull-sounding. “You sent for me. Why?”

“Well, we need you up 'ere, sir.” All around them the irregular concussion of exploding shells, the rattle of rifle fire. The air feels thick. Morning sun is cutting through the patchy fog. “Fact of the matter,” Trotter goes on, “everything’s gone to hell in a handbasket, and the men need to see someone they can trust.”

Stanhope wipes a clot of mud from his forehead with one blood-stained cuff and stands up. “Well,” he says, steadying himself on the trench wall, “I’ll try not to disappoint them. Lead on, Macduff.”

o0o

The next time they get a chance to speak, they’re huddled in a ruined house with what’s left of Sergeant Baker’s men. Stanhope’s busied himself conferring with Baker, and Trotter finds himself reassuring a remarkably young-looking private – about the food, of all things.

“It’s just that I – didn’t feel up to breakfast this morning. Uh, sir.” He peers miserably at Trotter through his crooked, fiendishly dirty glasses, as though he expects to be shouted at for being hungry.

Trotter glances over at Stanhope – still engaged in conversation – then fishes the paper packet of sandwiches out of his pocket and hands it to the boy. “’Ere you go, then. Only bully beef, I’m afraid, but it’s better than nothing.”

Private what’s-his-name takes the sandwiches, but looks at Trotter dubiously as he keeps talking. “Can’t win the war on an empty stomach, now can we?” he says, as kindly as he can.

Stanhope, he sees now, is beckoning him over to the corner nearest the chimney – or what’s left of it, at any rate. Trotter pats the boy on the shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting way, and goes over. The house seems to shiver around them under the continual shelling, like a wounded animal, and plaster dust filters down from the cracked ceiling.

“What is it now, skipper?” he says by way of greeting. Stanhope looks very pale, but nonetheless composed.

“Baker agrees with me,” he says without preamble. “We’re too exposed out here – we’ve got to try and push back towards Hibbert’s position, and then I suppose we’ll-” He passes a trembling hand over one clean-shaven cheek. “I’ve got no idea what the devil we’ll do then.”

“We’ll make the best of things, as always,” Trotter says – at precisely the same moment the north and east walls give way.

He’s getting awfully, awfully tired of this artillery-bombardment stuff.

When the dust settles, everything is eerily still for a moment. Trotter looks around, taking stock of the situation. He can’t see Baker anywhere, but a few of the men are beginning to stir. Stanhope lies crumpled in the corner by the chimney, pinned down by a chunk of wood that has fallen across his chest and left shoulder. A trickle of blood runs down from somewhere near his hairline as he struggles to shift it – part of the mantelpiece, Trotter thinks – clawing ineffectively with his free right hand at the ornately-carved wood.

Not that Trotter’s doing much better himself. He feels numb and shivery, and his legs don’t want to support his weight. The fog drifting in around them makes everything seem dreamlike as he limps over to where Stanhope is lying. “This rather complicates things, doesn’t it?” he says, bending down to help shift the mantelpiece.

Stanhope’s just about to make some smart retort – Trotter can see it on his face – when his gaze snaps to a point somewhere past Trotter’s right shoulder, and he snaps, “Get _down_!”

Trotter drops to the ground beside him without a second thought, and the shot intended for his head slams into the battered plaster wall instead. He turns over on his back, scrambling one-handed for his revolver. The Germans really couldn’t have planned this any better, he reflects – the artillery bombardment has them pinned down in this ruin, and the fog must have covered their movements. He aims carefully at the half-collapsed doorway across the room, where the shot must have originated. He thinks he sees movement at the edges of the doorway.

Next to him, Stanhope is still struggling with the heavy mantelpiece. It’s a solid piece of work, really, the sort of thing he’d be proud to have at home. “Off to the left, I think,” Stanhope says, fighting for breath. “He’ll pop out any second now.”

“I’m more worried about whatever pals he’s brought along,” Trotter says. He can hear booted footsteps on fragments of brick in the hall. “Where there’s one, there’s usually another.”

Near by, one of the men – either Norris or Stokes, Trotter can’t quite recall – is sitting up, moving slowly, cautiously putting his hand to his rifle. “I can get a bead on him, sir, if you draw him out in the open a little more,” he says, his voice low.

Trotter glances over at Stanhope, who seems to think it over briefly. “That may be the best chance we’ll have to get out of here and join up with Hibbert again,” he says. “Go on.”

“Right.” The footsteps in the hallway have paused, and a little further away Trotter hears low voices. He gets up on his knees and shuffles carefully towards the doorway. Behind him Stokes-or-Norris is loading his rifle.

“No need to worry, old man,” Stanhope says dryly. “Stokes is an excellent shot.”

“I should ‘ope so,” Trotter says, keeping his voice low as he creeps toward the ruined doorway. There’s a chilly breeze coming in through the half-collapsed wall to his left, tendrils of fog like the fingers of a corpse. Through the doorway ahead he can see only faint shadows moving. Just a little farther-

He hears a gun being cocked and has exactly long enough to perceive that it is, in fact, the sound of _more than one_ gun being cocked before several things happen at once:

Stokes fires a shot into the hallway, but doesn’t seem to hit anything;

A voice speaks softly in German from immediately behind him;

The barrel of a revolver is pressed to the back of his head.

Out of the corner of his right eye, Trotter sees a flurry of motion – Stokes, reloading. Behind him, he hears Stanhope say, his voice controlled and cold, “Stand _down_ , god damn you. They’ve got us surrounded.”

It’s directed at Stokes, but Trotter drops his revolver anyway. He is ashamed to do so, but in this moment, he realizes, he and Stokes may be the only men left standing out of Baker’s platoon, given that Stanhope is – out of commission for the time being, and none of the men are stirring. What on earth can the two of them do, trapped here like rats, cut off from the rest of the company?

The man standing behind him says something unintelligible, and two very young-looking privates emerge into the room through the hall doorway. One of them looks round the room quickly, then leans back into the hall and calls out something that begins with “Leutenant”.

Trotter stays as still as he can manage. His command of German is pitiful at best. Certainly not good enough to make himself understood. A chunk of brick is digging into his left knee, but he doesn’t dare move.

He hears footsteps in the hall, and a man in the torn, muddy uniform of a German officer steps into the room. The man standing behind Trotter says something to him, and receives a sharp reply. There’s a disappointed mutter, and the gun-barrel that has been pressed to his head goes away.

The officer turns his attention to Trotter, pauses a moment, and says “Who is in charge here?”

His accent is rough, but Trotter understands him well enough. He considers not answering, but grudgingly says, “ _He_ is. The young gentleman in the corner,” he adds, when he sees the officer glance towards Stokes rather than Stanhope.

“Ah. Thank you. Stand up, please.” The officer addresses himself to the man standing behind Trotter and says something to him that sounds like an order – “search him”, perhaps? Then the officer moves on, towards where Stanhope is lying.

Trotter stands up, relieved, and turns out his pockets, rather than permit this anonymous stranger to paw at him. He listens as the officer begins to talk to Stanhope. “Good morning, sir. What number is your – battalion?”

There’s a distinct pause, and Trotter is mildly shocked by the tenor of Stanhope’s reply – more exactly, by his phrasing, which sounds nothing at all like the Dennis Stanhope that Trotter has come to know.

“ ‘Good morning’, yourself,” he says. There’s a noise of shifting rubble. “I’m not saying a thing until you get this _fucking_ mantelpiece off of me.”

o0o

A hurried march through no-man’s land brings them to the German dugout where they are to be questioned. Trotter’s leg is beginning to ache abominably, and his head feels as though it’s been used as a football, but in all honesty, it’s not himself he’s concerned for.

He’s much more worried about Stanhope, who, for all that he’s been granted the luxury of a splintery wooden crate to sit on while he’s interrogated, looks absolutely dreadful. Even in the dim light, he looks positively grey in the face, and his left arm hangs unnaturally from the shoulder. His eyes are dull and unfocused.

“I’m telling you, _I do not know_ what happened to B Company.” He presses his right hand to his ribcage for a moment and adds, “And I certainly wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

“Captain,” the officer says gently (Mueller is his name, apparently, but Trotter can’t make out what his rank is supposed to be), “surely there must be _something_ you can tell us? It may well be worth their lives.”

Stanhope coughs harshly and wipes the back of his right hand across his lips. It comes away with a red stain, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “No,” he says firmly. “I only know the orders that were given to me.”

He pauses, and his voice trembles as he says, quite as politely as Trotter has ever heard him, “Could I trouble you for a drop of water?”

Mueller looks at him carefully, and says, guardedly, “I can’t see why not.”

Which is the exact moment that Stanhope faints dead away.

* * *

INTERLUDE.

“That’s when they decided to bring you up here,” Carter cuts in.

“Where are Stokes and the others, then?” Stanhope says. There’s a flush burning in his cheeks – though Trotter’s telling of it is more than sympathetic to him, it is difficult to bear having the full scope of his inadequacy laid out to a stranger, for all that Carter _says_ the two of them have become friends during his time here. He is profoundly grateful that this ward is deserted.

Carter glances inquisitively at Trotter, who makes no reply. “I’m sure I don’t know,” Carter says. “If they made it here, they may have been transferred somewhere else since then.”

“If they made it here,” Stanhope says.

“That’s just it, skipper,” Trotter says uncomfortably. “There was only a few of us left by then, with that fog making it so you could ‘ardly see your ‘and in front of your face. And the Germans didn’t exactly ‘ang around once they’d got their ‘ands on us. But I _do_ know I ‘aven’t seen anyone else ‘ere from C Company.”

The implication is unmistakable. Much as he would like to believe they are alive, there’s a distinct possibility that the others – Mason, Hibbert, Hammond, everyone he has come to know in his time commanding C Company - are dead. And there is no doubt – they are dead because of him, because of his inability to lead.

“That may not mean anything,” Carter says gently, breaking in on the run of Stanhope’s thoughts. “It’s more than possible that they were taken prisoner and simply sent somewhere else. Things have been quite chaotic lately.”

“No reason to give up ‘ope just yet,” Trotter says. “I thought for sure you were dead ‘til Carter came and spoke to me just now, and ‘ere you are.”

“What, you couldn’t be bothered to come visit?” Stanhope says, making a weak attempt at humor. “That’s not like you, Trotter.”

Carter looks uncomfortable. “Actually,” he says, “you’ve been in isolation. Quarantine, as it were.”

“What on earth _for_?” Stanhope asks.

Carter sighs. “It’s a long story.”

* * *

THE INVALID OF METZ.

Here is the story Randolph Carter tells:

You really can get used to anything, no matter how loathsome or bizarre. Things become familiar which, under normal conditions, would cause in you sensations of the utmost horror. So it is that, when I heard one of the nurses speaking to an orderly about a hopeless case, I felt only a mild species of interest, and so turned my attention to their conversation.

“I’m sorry, Sister,” the orderly was saying when I got close enough to hear, “it’s just I don’t see the point of keeping him under watch. He’s got pneumonia or whatever it is, he doesn’t have the strength to hurt a fly. And there's nothing we can do for him, anyway, so why bother?”

Yes, it’s true they were speaking in German, thank you, but I understood well enough what they were saying. The nurse responded to him thus:

“Be that as it may, he assaulted the lieutenant while he was still on the transport train, and came very near to breaking the poor man’s nose. The commander says he’s to be under guard at all times. That’s an order, and I should hate to have to report you for going against it.”

“Yes, Sister,” said the orderly. “It’s just there are so many others here we could actually do something for, and-”

I couldn’t help myself. “Look here,” I broke in. “Sister, you know me. Let this man go about his other duties, and _I’ll_ keep watch over this unfortunate fellow you’re talking about.”

She looked me up and down before saying, “Well, if it’ll keep you out of trouble, I suppose.”

I followed her over to the ward where this mysterious patient was. On the way, she said this to me:

“The only reason I’m letting _you_ do this is that there really is nothing to be done for him, medically speaking. He’s just got to be watched at all times.”

“I understand, Sister,” I said, “but what’s supposed to be the matter with him?”

“That’s really not your place to ask,” she said, ushering me into a tent I had not previously visited. “What’s important is that he’s not to leave bed without permission from myself or one of the doctors. Here we are,” she added, sweeping up to a cot nestled in one corner. The young man laying there seemed to be asleep until he opened his eyes as we walked up – for a moment, anyway, as he closed them again once he saw the nurse.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said, and left me there. I sat down in the chair, pulled out my book, and began to let my mind wander.

I had then been at Metz for very nearly two years, and was not hopeful of going home any time soon. Horrible as it sounds, I had gotten used to the place – and while I harbored no illusions that Germany would win the war, I thought then that they might yet hold out another year or so. I do not think so now – things have changed of late.

At any rate, my main concern then, as now, was simply to pass the time until _something_ happened and I could get free of this place. Don’t take offense when I tell you this – sitting and watching a man die (for hadn’t the nurse said that, for this young stranger, there was nothing medicine could do?) would at least break up the monotony of my days. I’ve seen a great deal of very strange things in my life, you must understand, and that tends to warp the way a man views the world around him.

So I sat there with my book open, not reading, only thinking in a loose, disconnected way of any number of things. There’s an art to not thinking of anything – one that I suspect you must know something about by now – but it requires at least a little quiet, and that is why I was startled when the man in the bed opened his eyes and began to speak to me. Well, truthfully, he directed his speech at the ceiling, but I naturally assumed he meant for me to hear it.

“If you’re here to interrogate me,” he said, “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. The fact is that I don’t know anything of value. You might as well have left me where you found me.”

He didn’t say this all at once, mind you – he said it in a series of choked little gasps, as if his chest were paining him. But nevertheless he seemed to be working himself up to a real speech, and so I cut in before he could get any farther.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I said, and he seemed surprised by something about my voice, “but you seem to have mistaken me for someone else. I’m not here to interrogate you at all.”

“Well, why are you here, then?” he said. Something about his manner interested me, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, interesting things are in short supply here. So I answered him honestly.

“To make sure you don’t go and attack any more Germans than you already have,” I said, “or at least that’s what the head nurse says. Really I only wanted a quiet place to read.”

He didn’t appear to have understood me at all, because this is what he said next:

“You’re American, I take it. What on earth are _you_ doing _here_?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I returned.

This made him laugh (and consequently wince).

“I suppose I should introduce myself,” I said. “My name is Randolph Carter.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Dennis Stanhope.”

o0o

With the German offensive that was then just beginning, there was no lack of new casualties coming in, and consequently there began to develop a marked shortage of people to treat them. So the head nurse had no objection to my continuing to watch over my new acquaintance, whose prognosis she seemed to find so hopeless. Some days after our first meeting, I cornered her at tea-time to get what information I could.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Sister,” I said, “but can’t you tell me _anything_ about that English officer, Stanhope?”

“That depends on what it is you want to know,” she said.

“I want to know enough that, if he gets worse, I can come and find one of you,” I said. “Sometimes he hardly seems to know me, and I think that cough of his is getting worse.”

“Several of his ribs are broken,” she said. “I would be more surprised if he _didn’t_ cough. You need only worry if he’s bringing up blood with it.”

“He _has_ been,” I said.

“He has?”

“Yes,” I said. “I thought that you knew.”

“I didn’t – but there is nothing to be done for it. Only do not let him come under any nervous strain, and that ought to help.”

“Pardon my rudeness, Sister,” I said, “but I think that just being here must cause him nervous strain.”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. He does seem to be the nervous type. Though he’s much better behaved when you’re around. Do your best, then – and don’t hesitate to fetch one of us if necessary.”

“I’ll use my best judgment,” I said, and she left me there.

Those were hard days indeed at Metz – not that any were ever easy, but it seemed as though all the wounded men on the whole western front were passing through. It made me feel uneasy to see all around me the variety of horrors that may be visited on the human body. I was far from healthy myself, but still I felt a vague sense of guilt as I made my way back – guilt because I could get up and walk around, when all around me were the mutilated and the dying.

Lacking anything better to do, I went directly back to my young acquaintance. I found him much as I had left him, which is to say, staring fixedly at the ceiling as if by an act of sheer will, he could transport himself to some other place.

“Well, I’ve had _some_ luck,” I said, sitting down in what I had already come to consider my chair – it didn’t seem as if the poor boy got many other visitors here. Even the orderlies seemed to avoid him.

“Did you, now,” he said, in a voice devoid of inflection.

“Yes. I’ve gotten the head nurse to tell me that your ribs are broken.”

“And the shoulder?” Still that dead-sounding voice, and still he did not look at me.

“She didn’t say anything about it,” I said. “I still think it was only dislocated, but don’t quote me on that.”

He lay there without responding to me at all, and I sat watching him, feeling helpless. I know well how miserable it is, being confined to bed, trapped with your own thoughts.

At last I couldn’t bear to sit there watching him any longer. “Take this,” I said, and handed him the book I had been picking my way through.

“What is this?” he said, turning it over in his hands as if he had never seen a book before. He opened it cautiously. “Arthur Machen? What’re you doing reading something by a German?” There was a barely-perceptible note of humor in his voice.

“He’s Welsh,” I said. “I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of him – his best stuff was all before your time, in the nineties. That’s one of them.”

He glanced over at me for a moment, then turned the pages slowly. “ ‘The Three Impostors’,” he read aloud. “Curious title. What’s it about?”

“Well, if you read it, you’ll find out,” I said.

He riffled the pages slowly; I noticed that he handled the book with unusual delicacy, as if he were afraid that any sudden or harsh movement would cause it to crumble to dust in his hands. “Where did you find this? I can’t imagine that you found it here,” he said, “but then I can’t imagine how you’d have brought it with you, either.”

“A friend sent it to me,” I was saying when he cut me off.

“In the mail?” I saw some emotion come into his eyes that was then hastily shuttered, hidden behind that blank deadness I had seen here in other men’s eyes, and come to loathe. “You’ve received mail, here?”

“Well, yes,” I said. “Of course it takes ages to get past the censors, but it does come through in some fashion, generally.”

He had fallen silent, studying the title page, and so I went on talking. “That book was the last thing I got, a month or so ago, with a letter. I don’t know what on earth the censors thought of it, if they read any. I’m reading it as slowly as I can.”

“So it’ll last longer,” he said, turning to the first page.

I was still a little surprised when he understood me right away. First out in the field, and then in here, I had gotten used to having to explain myself at length before anyone clued in to what I was trying to get at. Yet more often than not this overgrown schoolboy “got it”, first try.

“Yes,” I said. “Exactly so. The only trouble with the mail is that, first off, people have to know where you are if they’re going to write you.”

“Yes.” He wasn’t really hearing me – the book was drawing him in. Much as I did enjoy talking with the boy, getting his mind away from this place was perhaps the best thing I could do for him. Certainly it was the kindest thing for him. A place like Metz is no place for someone with a nervous temperament – and I know a nervous temperament when I see it, given that I myself possess one.

o0o

It was just over a week after our first meeting when I came to be more deeply concerned for the wellbeing of my young friend. It is true that I had only known him for a short time, but nevertheless I had begun to feel a kind of brotherly affection towards the young man. As I have said, his temperament was very much like mine, and I had long felt the lack of something so simple as a conversation-partner. It was not that I had let my correspondence with friends in the outside world falter – my colleague Harley Warren, especially, continued to write me the kind of lengthy, regularly-timed letters that had so characterized the beginning of our friendship – but letters cannot wholly match the experience of speaking, face-to-face, with a friend.

I recall that it was a relatively fine day, early last month – sunny, without a hint of the dreary fog that has so characterized this spring. Yet I was in a foul mood; following some weeks’ attempt at hunting down the surgeon who had operated on me most recently, I had settled for a hurried meeting with one of the few junior surgeons still remaining. He, of course, had waved me off with no more than a vague reassurance that my health would sort itself out in its own time. I’m quite sure he would have changed his tune if _he_ were the one suffering the after-effects of being used as a teaching-tool for the Kaiser’s finest young surgeons for nearly a year -

You’re right. I am distracted. Let me return to my point: I was in a foul mood when I went to call on young Stanhope that morning. When last I had seen him, he was continuing to make progress with the book of Machen’s I had lent him, and I hoped to find him in good enough spirits to discuss at least a little of it.

It had not been so long since I myself had had my freedom, such as it was, to roam the camp restricted, and I knew how harshly that sort of limitation can weigh on a man. Certainly it had weighed on me, and I am hardly cut from the same cloth when it comes to the need for physical activity. I could not change the orders that came down from the German administration, but I could at least give him a change of mental scenery. I hoped by doing so to lift both our spirits, and if nothing else, punctuate the monotony of our days.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to find Stanhope seemingly asleep as I approached his cot; finding him awake would have been more of a surprise. I couldn’t bring myself to wake him deliberately, so instead I settled into my accustomed chair and, solely to pass the time, began to re-read Warren’s latest missive.

I was doing my damnedest to make sense of a passage Warren had enclosed – a paragraph from Ludwig Prinn’s _De Vermis Mysteriis,_ of which I hope you have not heard – when I became aware that Stanhope had awakened. I did not look up for fear of losing my place, but addressed myself to him as I went on reading.

“Good morning,” I said. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Oh no,” he said, “I am quite dead.”

 _That_ got my attention – though I admit, I did think he was joking.

“Yes,” I said, as lightly as I could, “you and I both – and this is Hell.”

“Yes,” he said. “Hell.” He paused, and when he went on speaking, I noticed that his voice was curiously cracked-sounding. “I suppose it’s no more than I deserve. Only come a little closer and let me see you – who are you?”

“Who do you think I am?” I said. I was beginning to grow unsettled by his tone.

He did not look at me, only lay there unmoving until I began to think he had fallen back asleep.

“I said, who are you?” There was a tremor in his voice now. “I can’t see you, but I can hear you. Am I blind? Where is this?”

He turned his face to me, and the sightless, fogged appearance of his eyes alone would have been enough to send me looking for the closest nurse, had it not been for what he said next.

No, I won’t repeat it – not because it was obscene or shameful in any normal, Earthly sense, but because it was not Earthly at all. It was a mere phrase, a fragmentary incantation preserved only in the unspeakable _Necronomicon_ of Abdul Alhazred. It was a sentence in the tongue of the people of aeon-drowned Sarnath, thankfully long-forgotten by the more youthful races of man. I will not even tell you what it signifies.

Because it was not even that phrase, though it has such terrible significance, which impressed upon me the urgency of the situation – though I am sure that it alone would make any man’s blood run cold.

No, it was what he said _after_ that which really horrified me, though for no reason I can clearly articulate – what I heard him say as I fled in search of help – and what he said was only this:

“Where is everyone? Am I dying? _Raleigh, what’s happened to me_?”

o0o

I appreciate your patience. There is not very much more for me to tell; consequently I will be brief.

The nurse having been summoned, she immediately diagnosed him with a fever, arising from pneumonia, itself invited by some injury to the lung, incurred she knew not how. She prescribed rest, and the strictest isolation – an exclusion, she made clear, which was to include me, and which if I defied it, would result in the revocation of certain of my own privileges within the camp.

She did extend me one courtesy, however, given that Stanhope did not seem to have made any other friends in the camp – when he showed signs of returning to himself, she would send for me, that I might offer him such comfort as I could.

* * *

THE NOVEL OF THE LAZARETT.

Once Carter brings his story to a finish, Trotter finds some excuse to depart – unfortunately, Carter remains.

“Let me be the first to say,” he says, “yes, I _was_ laying it on a little thick towards the end there – only because I didn’t wish to embarrass you overmuch by giving the factual details.”

“Didn’t wish to embarrass me?” Stanhope says, incredulous. “You couldn’t possibly have made me look any worse.”

Carter looks at him blandly. “Couldn’t I?”

“You’ve made me sound like a nervous wreck in front of one of my subalterns,” he returns. “If that’s not embarrassing, I don’t know what it is.”

“In this case, metaphorical.” Carter’s expression shifts slightly. “Tell me, Stanhope,” he says, “do you think there’s a limit to what the human mind can bear? That there are things no normal man could see, and retain his sanity?”

He doesn’t have to consider his answer, though he gives it grudgingly. “Yes.”

“And would you agree that there are things we can only understand when they’re divided into parts, because to see their true nature would drive us mad? Things, ideas, which no human language can adequately capture?”

“I suppose.” He is the very definition of a captive audience right now, and is beginning to wish devoutly that Carter would just _shut up._

“And yet we must talk about them, and do – but we cloak them with carefully-chosen words, to make them sound less shocking. To lessen the blow.” Carter sighs. “That’s why I was talking that way, at the end.”

“I’m sure I’ve got no idea what you mean,” Stanhope says, as coldly as he can manage.

“I mean that – I talked that way because I knew that, if I did, _Trotter wouldn’t believe me_. A man like that has no – or nearly no – imagination to speak of, and so he’ll go away thinking that I was just pulling his leg. He won’t wonder what really happened to you.”

“ ‘What really happened’?” Stanhope gives him back his own words.

Carter looks at him tiredly. “You’ve been sick for a long time. You’re getting better, or you will if you’re careful. I can see that you’re tired of me, and so I’ll go away for now. But I would like to talk – later.”

“ _Finally_ ,” Stanhope says, and Carter leaves him alone with his thoughts.

o0o

Carter comes back, at virtually the same moment that Stanhope has just begun trying to apply himself to the book he left behind. It’s not a terribly comfortable endeavor – holding the book strains his shoulder, and there seems to be no position in which he can lie that doesn’t make his ribs ache resentfully – but it passes the time more agreeably than simply lying there listening to the coughing and labored breathing of the ‘flu patients who have been brought in. The man in the bed next to him has a particularly _wet_ sound to his gasps for air – bubbly and unwholesome.

“Gruesome stuff, isn’t it?” Carter says by way of greeting, indicating the book.

“I suppose,” Stanhope says. “Aren’t you afraid of getting ill, coming in here?”

“Oh, no,” Carter says, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Last time I had the ‘flu would’ve been when I was a young man, in the early nineties – _well_ before your time.”

“Yes,” says Stanhope, idly working out the figures in his head – if he was young in the nineties, then Carter must be nearly of an age with Osborne. Or he would be, if Osborne were still alive - the thought causes him to feel the strange, childish urge to cry.

“This ‘flu’s a curious thing,” Carter says.

“How so?” Stanhope says, giving him the response he’s clearly looking for.

“Well, from what I’ve picked up here and there, some people aren’t even sure that it _is_ ‘flu,” Carter says, primly crossing one leg over the other. “There’s a surgeon here who’s positively adamant it’s pneumonia, because it doesn’t behave like any ‘flu he’s ever seen – and of course, the world is limited only to his personal experience.”

“How does it behave, then?”

“Ever seen a man drown on dry land?” Carter says. “The lungs fill up with fluid, and he strangles on it. Gas can cause it.”

“Yes,” Stanhope says. “I’ve seen it.”

“’Flu doesn’t usually cause that, or I dare say we’d give it more respect.”

“I suppose,” Stanhope says. He is in no mood at all to hear Carter talk any longer today. “What are you _really_ here for, Carter?”

“To talk,” he says. “About why I talked the way I did earlier, when Trotter was here.”

“You’ve _told_ me why,” Stanhope says, making himself sound as bored as he possibly can. “Or at least you told me a great deal of mystical-sounding nonsense.”

“Hardly mystical,” Carter returns. “Obscurely-phrased, I’ll grant, but I was talking about literal truths. Trotter will go on thinking I was telling a tall tale to amuse myself, and you really have been sick all this time with nothing more shameful than pneumonia. But _I_ know, and _you_ know, that it’s something else as well.”

“What’s that?” Stanhope asks. “And how would you know? You’ve made it clear you’re not one of the doctors, and you’re certainly not one of the nurses.”

“That I am not,” Carter says. “I know because I’ve seen it before – I don’t know what you call it in England, but we Yankees call it the d.t.’s; delirium tremens. Alcohol withdrawal.”

“I don’t like your tone,” Stanhope says. There’s a sharp ache building behind his left eye – of all the times for that to make a return. He's aware that he’s still holding the book. The binding flexes under his fingers.

“I’ve seen it before,” Carter says, “so I can tell you this: I’m sure you don’t think so now, but getting wounded is the best thing that could’ve happened to you. If you were still out there on the front lines, you’d be well on track to drink yourself to death – and if you don’t mind my saying so, the world would be the poorer for it.”

Stanhope throws the book at him.

“I suppose I deserved that,” Carter says mildly, and leans over to pick the book up from where it’s fallen on the packed earth of the tent floor. “I stand by what I said, though, and don’t think I mean to cast any aspersions on your character when I say it.”

“You’re accusing me of being no better than a common drunkard,” Stanhope says, doing his level best to keep his temper in check. “I fail to see what makes that _not_ an attack on my character.”

“The way you were drinking doesn’t reflect on your character,” Carter says. “It reflects on the situation you’d been put in.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The brass ordered you to hold out against the largest German offensive since I’ve been over here. Alone.”

“ _And I failed them_ , or I wouldn’t be here,” Stanhope says, unable to keep anger from creeping into his voice. There’s a stale, bitter taste in his mouth. “How _dare_ you speak to me this way-”

Carter cuts him off. “You did exactly as you were ordered to – better, even. They expected you to hold the line as long as you could, against impossible odds. Which you did. Your company was the last to be overrun in that section of the line – at least, as near as I can make out from what you and Trotter have said.”

“When on earth would I have had time to tell you anything about that?” Stanhope says, as coolly as he can manage. “If I’ve been in – in quarantine all this time, like you say I was?”

Carter has the decency to look a little guilty (and oddly worried, for whatever reason). “What I said when Trotter was here – well, you _have_ been in isolation, but only since last Monday. Before that, you were only under guard.”

“By you.”

“More or less.”

“And that’s when you’re saying I – told you all this.”

“Yes,” Carter says. “And a good deal of other things as well.”

A chilly horror creeps over Stanhope – the awful, familiar fear that he has said something beastly which he cannot now recall. His expression must have changed, because Carter says gently, “Nothing to be ashamed of. You talked about all kinds of things, but nothing to be ashamed of.”

“ ‘Nothing to be ashamed of’? You absolute _swine_.” The way Stanhope’s voice cracks like a schoolboy’s on the last word rather ruins the effect he’d hoped to convey.

“Christ alive, man,” Carter says. “I mean you didn’t say anything I wouldn’t expect to hear from a young man your age.” He laughs darkly. “You kept asking when you’d be fit for duty again.”

“What’s so funny about that?” Stanhope demands.

Carter’s reply is blunt. “Half the time you didn’t seem to know where you were or what had happened to you. You were hardly cut out to leave bed, but you kept asking me to send you back to the front to rejoin your men. Said you didn’t want to waste the doctors’ time when you were fit as a fiddle.” He pauses for a moment. “You kept calling me Osborne.”

He can’t seem to muster a reply; no words will come to him.

Carter’s voice is quiet. “I don’t know who he was to you – a friend, a fellow officer – but you spoke of him often, when you were more yourself. I tried asking the matron if anyone else from your company was here, anyone by that name, and she told me there was only Trotter.”

“You could have asked him who – Osborne was. He could have told you.” The words seem to come only from his mouth, without passing through his brain at all – an uncomfortably familiar sensation.

“If I’d told him, he would have wanted to come see you.”

“And?”

“It wouldn’t have been _right_ ,” Carter says, “for him to see you like that.” He sets the book down on the little side-table. Behind him the man in the next bed goes on fighting for breath. “To see you when you weren’t yourself. It wouldn’t have been right.”

“No,” Stanhope says. “It wouldn’t have.”

Carter sits there, not saying anything, looking past Stanhope at the canvas side of the tent, for a moment before he speaks again. “I’m afraid I’m needed elsewhere; my apologies for imposing on you.” He stands up and brushes a hand over the front of his tunic.

“What on earth would they need _you_ for?” Stanhope says.

A chilly, distant expression comes over Carter’s face. “A good deal of the orderlies are down with the ‘flu just now,” he says. “So they’ve gotten some of the prisoners into the business of moving bodies to the cemetery.” He gestures loosely to the whole tent. “You may be seeing a good deal of me in the near future.” He pauses, then adds, “For what it’s worth, I am sorry about all this.”

He pats Stanhope on the shoulder and, finally, leaves.

o0o

At some point he falls asleep. There are no dreams that he can remember, but he wakes up – sometime in the early evening, judging from the quality of the light – with his heart pounding. His thoughts are in disorder.

 _I’ve been here before,_ he thinks. _I’ve been here before._

He’s still lying there when Carter appears, looking pale in the gloom.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Carter says. Rather than sit down, he stands at the end of the bed, hands in pockets. “I’ve got news for you.”

“What is it?” Stanhope forces himself to take a deep breath, slowly. His chest hurts, but not as severely as it did in the morning.

“The matron says that, as long as you promise to behave yourself, you’re free to move about the camp,” he says. “More likely than not you’ll be given a work assignment shortly.” He hesitates. “That’s all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the process of writing, this fic has diverged significantly from the original plan I had for it, but there will be one more chapter, mostly covering events after the war. Tags will be edited accordingly.
> 
> The "chapter" titles are riffs on Arthur Machen's _The Three Impostors_.


	2. Chapter 2

THE FEVER CALLED ‘LIVING’.

The nurse who comes to examine Stanhope in the morning is not what he has been expecting – younger, for one thing. And kinder. Lying awake in the night, he had formed an image of the head nurse as a sour-faced harridan with an accent strong enough to peel paint and no compassion to speak of. The woman he meets has a kind, open face, and gentle hands. Yet the fact of her kindness doesn’t make up for the embarrassment he feels at having her examine him – or the shame he feels when she finds his progress unsatisfactory.

His lung function, she informs him with cool impartiality, is better than it was when she first saw him, but still poor. In time, he will probably recover to some degree, but there’s no telling how long that will take. Or if it will happen at all. Anything more than very light exercise is out of the question for the near future; on that point she is quite firm.

Next she examines his ribs and left shoulder, which requires him to lie there patiently in his undershirt while she gently touches his chest. By now he’s become more or less accustomed to being seen by other men when in a state of undress, but being seen by a woman in such a state is new to him. He finds himself blushing miserably, which she thankfully has the tact to ignore.

Her verdict on his ribs is better than her verdict on his lungs – his ribs are mending slowly, but mending. The one piece of good news she has for him is that his shoulder is nearly healed, and is unlikely to present substantive problems for him in the future.

She helps him wash his face with tepid water – he is badly in need of a shave, but is reluctant to ask her for help with this – and tells him he’s lucky to have lived this long; if his good luck holds out, he may live to see the end of the war.

_What luck is that_ ? he thinks, as she helps him comb his hair. Every breath he takes is like a knife in the ribs. He has led his entire company to its death. Every man for whom he was responsible is dead, save one. _I would be better off dead._

o0o

Once he is permitted to leave bed and, though limited by his own weakness as well as by order of the nurses, wander a little where he is permitted to, Stanhope finds that the camp both is, and is not, what he had imagined a detention camp to be.

The _Lazarett_ at Metz is for the most part inhabited by officers, he finds, and so most of the prisoners here come from a social stratum vaguely similar to his. Carter, he learns with some surprise, does not hold a commission – like Trotter, he has been promoted from the ranks. This is at odds with both his personal gentility and his blue-blooded family history – but then, Carter’s past is full of mystery as a rule.

Stanhope finds himself, oddly, missing the variegated social composition of C Company. There, he was exposed to a wide selection of his countrymen, a diversity of local types he hardly could have imagined, from any kind of background one cared to name.

Of course, the prisoners here come from a variety of places – there are a great deal of Frenchmen, a clannish group of Russians, even a handful of Americans who have preceded their motherland into war, to name a few. But they are not the same as the men whom he had come to know in his time with C Company, and what is lacking is that variation in pedigree, which brings with it a corresponding variation in opinion.

“I think it’s a fact,” he says to Carter one evening, “that in any group of men large enough, there’s bound to be at least one fellow that you can talk to man-to-man. The trouble is in finding him.”

“Yes,” Carter says softly, “I think that’s true. But of course it has to be the right group of men, or you could hunt forever in a crowd of thousands without finding one you could talk to at all. And it isn’t so much a matter of not speaking the same language – that’s no obstacle at all, in the end – as it is a matter of... I suppose you could call it the heart. Or whatever part of the brain it is that governs man’s ability to think deeply about the world. There are those in whom that ability has vanished, and not as a consequence of bad breeding, for you can find that kind of man in a drawing-room as easily as you can find him in the filthiest of slums.”

The sun is beginning to go down, in the sluggish manner of late spring or early summer, and Stanhope doesn’t feel much inclined to move from his spot, though the air is growing colder as the sun drops towards the horizon. “What do you mean, ‘think deeply’?” he asks.

Far above, the bright streak of a shooting star cuts through the gathering dusk like a flare, and Carter watches it for a moment before speaking again.

“You could call it imagination; that’s another name for it,” he says. “It is the ability to look at something and see beyond its surface. To see things not as they are, but as the might be, or might have been. It is the thing that is at work in the man who looks at a Roman ruin and sees it as it was when it was new; and it is also at work in the man who looks at a piece of waste-land and thinks of the factory he could build there. I think it is weaker in the latter man than in the former, but it is still at work.”

“Yes,” says Stanhope. “I know what you mean. But I think, maybe, sometimes it’s better to have no imagination at all – easier on the nerves-”

He has to break off there; there is no more breath in his lungs, and he is rather forced to lie on the bench and breathe as deeply as he can while Carter first mulls this over, then speaks.

“You’re right, I think – now more than ever, I think that is the case. A man who comes out here with no imagination can see the most terrible things, and think them nothing but a grisly inconvenience. Because he doesn’t have the faculty of imagination that causes a sensitive man to, in a sense, _never stop_ seeing those things.”

“But,” Stanhope says when he has got his breath back, “wouldn’t you say that seeing those sorts of things, seeing them every day – wouldn’t you say that seeing these things tends to deaden the imagination?” He takes a deep breath and carries on. “So it hardly matters if a man has a sensitive temperament or not, if he’s on the front lines long enough?”

“Perhaps,” Carter says thoughtfully. “But you see, the trouble is that an imaginative faculty that has been deadened will, sooner or later, _come back_.”

o0o

It is an uncharacteristically cool and foggy day in early summer; the wet air sits in Stanhope’s lungs like mud, and he has to fight down the sensation that he is drowning. Carter is talking - he’s received a letter from one of his friends in the outside world.

“You'd get along with him well, I think,” he’s saying. “He’s not much older than you are - comes from an old Creole family down South. Can’t imagine what possessed the fellow to join the Legion--”

“What possessed any of us to join up?” Stanhope mutters, and draws in another laborious breath.

Evidently Carter finds this amusing - he breaks into a rare peal of laughter, and Stanhope almost doesn’t notice the nurse who has come up next to him.

It is Sister Anneliese, whom he recognizes by her greying red hair, worn in a neat bun under her nurse’s cap. She touches his shoulder gently and says, “Captain - come with me, please.”

“What is it?” he says. Carter has stopped laughing, and is watching Sister Anneliese with a cat’s lazy curiosity.

“Your friend, Lieutenant Trotter. He’s asked to see you. In the quarantine tent.”

“Second Lieutenant, actually,” he says, automatically, before really understanding what she’s said. “I’m sorry. The quarantine tent?”

“Where you were until last week, but that’s not important right now," Carter says - perhaps genuinely trying to be helpful, but most likely just needling him in the spirit of friendship.

“Shut up,” Stanhope says to Carter, before turning his attention back to Sister Anneliese, who is beckoning him to follow her. “What on earth is he doing there?” he asks, following her across the yard.

It takes her a moment to find the words; Sister Anneliese’s command of English is adequate, but imperfect. “Two days ago,” she says, donning a makeshift gauze mask, and gesturing for Stanhope to do likewise, “he reported to sick call with fever and catarrh. Doctor Bauman ordered him to be sent here as a precautionary measure. After me, please.”

He follows. The air inside the tent seems thicker even than the clammy air outside; there is a strong scent of disinfectant, overlain by an unpleasantly organic sickroom smell. He can’t quite seem to catch his breath.

They pass two masked orderlies scattering clean earth over a tar-black puddle that it takes Stanhope a moment to realize is blood. In a bed nearby, there is a man who Stanhope thinks is dead until he draws a slow, shallow breath. The skin of his face, his hands, is a slaty-grey color, and there is blood dried at the corners of his mouth.

Trotter, when they come to his bed, looks comfortingly like himself, despite a certain sweaty pallor. He seems pleased to see Stanhope, and says, “’ello, skipper.”

“Hello,” Stanhope returns stiffly. That thick smell of illness seems to be everywhere. “What’s the trouble?”

“There isn’t any trouble,” he says, “only I thought it’d be nice to see a friendly face. For my ‘ealth and all.”

“Yes,” Stanhope says. “Right.” Sister Anneliese is still standing there.

“There is one thing,” Trotter says, drawing out a carefully-folded piece of paper. “I don’t think you’ll ‘ave to send it, but this’s a letter for me wife. In case the worst ‘appens.”

He holds the letter out for Stanhope to take - Trotter’s fingers, he notices, are oddly cold, despite how warm the tent seems. A prickly sweat breaks out across Stanhope’s back and chest as he carefully tucks the letter into his tunic pocket. “You’ll be better in no time, old man,” he says.

_Get it together_ , he chides himself. _Trotter came and saw you when you were ill. The least you can do is speak with him now, or what kind of commanding officer will you be?_

The smell of blood is overpowering; the canvas walls seem to move closer, and the air is thick and wet. The gauze mask sticks to his cheeks and lips as he breathes.

The edges of his vision dim and brighten, dim and brighten.

Trotter is still looking at him.

“I’m - terribly sorry,” he says, “but I - I have to go.”

The world seems to be very far away from him, and he moves in it like a ghost. He finds himself in the little yard, and collapses onto the low bench.

His breath comes too quickly, as if he has been running for his life, and burns the back of his throat. It feels as though he is drifting away from his body, leaving it behind. The need for a drink crashes over him like a breaking wave; he wants the oblivion of drunkenness more now than he has ever wanted anything.

He just wants to _sleep_ , sleep until all this passes by, sleep forever if he has to. He wants to descend into whatever abyssal depths lay at the bottom of his consciousness, by whatever means necessary; anything, anything at all would be better than this. He is aware that, in a sense, that passage is occurring now – time no longer seems to function as it should. _The time is out of joint_ , he thinks, and cannot recall what line should follow.

He’s not surprised to hear Carter’s voice. The capacity for surprise seems to have abandoned him. He feels numb. Anesthetized, as though an unseen thing is preparing him for some unspeakable kind of surgery.

“ _There_ you are.” He hears booted footsteps behind him as Carter approaches and comes up behind him, then stops and stands beside him. There’s a polite cough, intended to get his attention, and Carter hands him a steaming mug. He has to focus to move his hand and arm to take the mug; it is as though he’s moving them from a long distance away.

“That’s the last of my instant coffee,” Carter says, “so you’d better drink it if you know what’s good for you.” He pauses. “Shove over. Let an old man sit down.”

He shifts a little on the bench, and Carter settles down next to him, just a little too close for comfort.

“I’ve killed him, Carter, I’ve killed him.” His voice sounds low and hoarse, and he is surprised to find himself speaking. It is supremely difficult to marshal his thoughts. They seem to scatter before him like blowing dust.

“Killed who? Trotter? He’ll be fine.” Carter puts his arm around Stanhope’s shoulders, like an uncle attempting to impart advice to a wayward nephew. “Healthy as a horse, that man.”

There’s an awful tight feeling behind his eyes. “Why not?” he says. “Everyone, everyone else is dying. Why not him.” A hysterical laugh escapes him, like coughing up a shard of glass. “Why not me.”

“You’ve already been sick.” Carter’s voice is cool. “And if you haven’t noticed, it’s mostly fellows _your_ age who are dying. Trotter’s old enough to be your father. He’s going to be fine.”

“I, I” -he gropes for the words, but they refuse to come- “I _saw_ him, when I was still sick. I – he caught it from me.” He clutches the mug with both hands. His fingers feel like foreign objects, but the solidity of the cheap, machine-stamped tin helps to ground him a little.

“I’ve killed _all_ of them, Carter – the whole company,” he says. That same broken-glass laugh escapes him again. “Some war hero I am.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Stanhope,” Carter says, “but there _are_ no heroes in this war.”

o0o

“Is there someone waiting for you at home?” Carter says to him one day.

They’re out in the yard, enjoying the warm July weather despite the cloudy sky. One of the Americans, a man named Whitman, is trying to teach a group of prisoners the rules of poker, and it’s not going well. But it is warm and the camp is quiet, and Stanhope is more willing than usual to talk to Carter.

“Yes,” he says, turning his attention from Whitman and the makeshift card table.

“Does she have a name?” Carter sits down next to him on the bench.

“Yes – her name’s Margaret. How about you?” he says, mostly to be polite. “Are you married?”

“No,” Carter says. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly a ‘catch’. So – tell me about this Margaret.”

“Well-” His hand goes to his tunic pocket and finds it empty. “I had a photo of her, but I – I seem to have mislaid it.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” Carter waves his hand dismissively. “I mean, what is she _like_? Surely you don’t need a photograph for that.”

“Tough as nails,” he says, for lack of a better phrase. “She’s a nurse – in the hospital at Bournemouth, last I heard.”

Carter whistles in appreciation. “Those nurses work pretty hard. She must be quite the girl.”

“Oh, yes,” Stanhope says. “She’s no shrinking violet like some girls – before she left school, she was captain of the hockey team two years running. Her brother and I were thick as thieves when we were kids, and Madge used to run around with us as well. I remember she was quite as tough as any boy I knew.”

“Modern girls often are,” Carter says. “I suppose they have to be, just to get by. It’s a step in the right direction, I think - when I was young, no decent woman would’ve considered working outside her home. Things were different then.”

“You’ve said as much.” It is perhaps one of Carter’s favorite topics: how much things have changed since his youth.

“Because it’s true,” Carter says. He is silent for a moment, then says, more quietly, “In the interest of being honest with you - you talked about her while you were sick. Not much, but you did talk about her. I wasn’t sure until now whether she was, ah, a real person.”

A chilly sensation of dread comes over him. He can’t seem to fully catch his breath, but at last he says, slowly, “What did I - say about her?”

“Not much. You asked me where she was, or to keep her from seeing you while you were ill. You were quite insistent that she not see you in that state - which seems odd to me now, knowing that she's a nurse.”

“She’s known me for a long time,” Stanhope says, in a voice that sounds dead and toneless even to him. “She thinks I’m a bona fide war hero, not a - bloody invalid.”

“There is a story Plutarch tells,” Carter says quietly, “that when a Spartan youth - his name is not recorded - went off to war, his mother handed him his shield and said ‘Son, either with this or on this’.” He sounds as if he is reciting from memory; Stanhope doesn’t know enough of Plutarch to say whether that is true.

“I fail to see the relevance.”

Carter's focus is intense. “She expected him either to come home victorious, or die in the attempt. Those were the only outcomes she would accept - come home a victor or don't come at all. Not lacking a limb, not suffering shell-shock. War has changed since those days; those of us lucky enough to be going home are doing so with injuries that Spartan matron could hardly imagine.”

“For the love of all that's good, Carter, get to the point.” A stray raindrop lands on the back of Stanhope's hand.

“No one's going to win this war, Stanhope, though it's fair to say that Germany and Russia have lost it. The rest of us - well, the men at the top will shake hands and congratulate each other on a job well done, but nothing will really change for the rest of us. The end of the war won't really bring us peace, because it's changed us so profoundly.”

“Carter-”

“If any civilians understand the new status quo,” Carter interjects, “it's the nurses. She'll be glad to have you home at all.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Stanhope says, harshly. “There's not a chance in hell she'll want to see me. Her brother Jimmy only joined up because of me in the first place. It's my fault that he's dead, and she knows that.” Another errant raindrop strikes his arm, and he swipes it away.

Carter's voice is as cool and controlled as ever. “I suppose that might be true. But suppose that she does want to see you - that she asks you to come visit. And if you don't, if you refuse - he will have died for nothing.”

It is just at that moment that the clouds open up and it begins to rain in earnest, and Stanhope is ashamed to find himself grateful that the storm has saved him the difficulty of ending the conversation himself.

o0o

“You’re still working through that Machen book I loaned you?” Carter says.

Stanhope glances up from the book in question. “Why?”

Carter waves one hand dismissively. “I was going to ask whether you were enjoying it, but if I’m interrupting, I’ll go.”

“You’re not interrupting.” He closes the book. “And I am enjoying it, so far.”

“Good to hear.” Carter rocks back on the worn-down heels of his boots, leaving an imprint in the damp earth. “How far have you gotten?”

“I’ve been reading from the – story about the professor in Wales.”

“Yes, that’s a good one,” Carter says. When he nods he looks like a schoolmaster. “One of my favorites.” He pauses for just a moment. There’s a strange, intense light in his eyes, and a careful quality to his speech, like an actor, or someone speaking in code. “You must tell me when you get to the ‘Novel of the White Powder’ later on. I think you’ll find it instructive.”

“Instructive? How so?” Carter has the absolute _strangest_ ideas about what sort of things are educational; Stanhope wouldn’t be in the least surprised if he ended up with a professorship somewhere after all this unpleasantness is over.

“It contains,” he says, “some interesting insights into the human condition during early adulthood. I think he captures the general mood quite well, but it’s been some time since I was that age. I wanted to get your opinion on it.”

“Thank you, Carter,” Stanhope says, opening the book again. The sun is still shining, no one is ordering him to go anywhere, and he intends to enjoy it while it lasts.

o0o

“The trouble,” Carter says, “is keeping yourself from going entirely mad from tedium.”

“How’s that?” says Stanhope, wincingly smoking his first cigarette since March. It has a dusty, stale taste, but any tobacco at all is very fine when you haven’t smoked in a long while.

“What I mean is that, in a place like this, boredom is what you really have to watch out for,” Carter says.

It is a cool Sunday evening in early October, and the two of them are out in the yard taking the air. Carter, as is his custom, is sprawled out on one of the low, rough-cut benches – this pose reveals his true height, usually concealed by the slump-shouldered way he stands – but he talks with the easy confidence of a lecturer.

“There’s not much you can really do for an injury to the body,” he continues, “except wait for it to heal on its own time – but nervous trouble nearly always starts with simple boredom.”

“I suppose,” Stanhope says agreeably. When he’s in this kind of mood, Carter will happily go on talking to himself, whether or not Stanhope replies to him – but it is, after all, polite to say something in return.

“What I mean is – think about going on watch at night, and keeping yourself from falling asleep up in the trench. Waiting for something to happen, half-hoping that it won’t, half-hoping that it will, because at least then you wouldn’t be waiting anymore.” He stops for a moment before going on. “It’s worse for the nerves than getting shot at, I think.”

“ _Really_ ,” Stanhope says. “You think so.”

“I’m sure of it,” Carter says confidently. “Take this fellow Hibbert you’ve mentioned, whose nerves were so bad at the end.”

“There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with his nerves,” Stanhope mutters, regretfully stubbing out the remains of his cigarette. “The only thing wrong with him was that he hadn’t the spine to stick it out with the rest of us.”

“That’s just what I’m saying,” Carter says. “Without meeting him I can’t say for sure, but he sounds like a sensitive-enough fellow?”

“I think he was,” Stanhope allows, “or he was before he started to crack up, anyway.”

“Exactly. Some men don’t have any imagination to speak of, and they tend to come through things all right. It’s the sensitive types, like Hibbert, that you have to watch out for – they’re always thinking, and if they don’t find some other way of passing the time, it’s that habit of overthinking that gets them, in the end.” He pauses before going on. “And if you’re not careful, that type of man can very easily bring you down with him.”

“That’s true,” Stanhope says. (There is a thin, mirthless smile playing on his lips.) “There were days it was all I could do to keep from strangling him – Hibbert. The way he talked, sometimes – and the look on his face – I can’t explain it now, but Christ, I hated him.”

“Every dugout in France has a man like that in it,” Carter says. “No matter what side you’re on, I think – like rats, I suppose. They get everywhere. Ours was called-” He stops for a moment, then laughs. “I’ve forgotten his name entirely. Strange, to forget his name after spending so long loathing him.”

“I’m sure it’ll come to you,” Stanhope says, slowly unraveling a loose thread from one cuff. “Hibbert wasn’t the first man we had like that, you know. Before him there was – Warren, I think his name was. No relation to your friend, I'm sure,” he adds hastily.

“None at all,” Carter says dryly. “Not unless he came from Georgia – Harley’s people have been there since the witch trials.”

“Quite,” Stanhope says – like many of the allusions Carter makes, this is lost on him. Americans. “No, our Warren was a wretched fellow, and I was glad to see the back of him. The last I saw him would’ve been just about this time last year – or, let me see – no, it would’ve been last fall.”

“What happened to him after that?”

“Crawled off home, the miserable little worm.” There is a bitter taste in his mouth. “Quite the rhetorician, he was - he talked his way into a medical discharge. Rather like Hibbert, that way; wasting the medical officer’s time because he hadn't the spine to see things through.”

“Would you say he was lazy?” There's a coldly curious look in Carter's eyes.

“In a word, yes,” says Stanhope, “though more so at the end, and Hibbert more so than Warren. I think Hibbert knew I wasn't inclined to let him escape the way I had Warren, and by the end he had given up the pretense entirely.”

“What pretense?” Carter prompts.

“That the situation was entirely out of his control.” Words elude him for a moment before he can go on. “That he _wanted_ to do his duty, but _could not_. Warren was better at - acting the part, and that was how he talked his way past the medical officer and I.”

He has to pause again; his ribs have locked up like a clenched fist, and he cannot get enough air. Carter waits patiently in the gathering dusk; a shaft of golden light falls between them, casting off shadows on Carter’s face. Everything is still.

“I know that Warren was shamming,” Stanhope says at last, “but I think by the end, Hibbert - wasn’t. Not entirely. He wasn’t as badly off as he pretended to be, but I could see it in his eyes. Whatever nerve he had had at the start was gone.”

“What did you think of him, when he first came to your company?”

“I thought he was an idler, but I hoped he’d shape up and prove me wrong. More fool I.”

“Yes,” Carter says softly, “yes, I know the type - the man I knew was exactly that way. I wonder, though. How do you think he felt about you?”

o0o

It is a cool evening in November, and Stanhope is enjoying the last of the sunshine in the yard. Trotter is nearby, working his way through a game of patience. If not for their surroundings here, it could be any number of evenings they once spent together behind the lines.

It all seems so long ago, and Stanhope finds himself missing even Hibbert. When he hears booted footsteps approaching, he wishes for just a moment that it would be that sniveling little weakling coming around the corner, that he could look up and see that all his old friends are here after all, alive and well. That there has only been some terrible mistake.

Instead it’s Randolph Carter, limping slightly on his bad leg, with a strange, unreadable expression on his dour face.

“Gentlemen,” he says. “I come bearing news.”

Trotter glances up from his game. “I ‘ope it’s _good_ news,” he says.

“Good news for the three of us,” Carter says, “but perhaps not so good for Germany.”

“Well, you’ve got _my_ attention,” says Stanhope.

“I don’t want to speak too soon, but I’ve heard from a reliable source that there’s an armistice in the making.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Trotter says placidly.

“If I ‘ad a shilling for every time I've ‘eard someone say the war’s over, I’d be going ‘ome a rich man.”

“Reasonable enough,” Carter says, “but I think we can all agree that the war will be over by this time next year.”

“Sooner than that, if you ask me,” says Stanhope. He has heard the nurses gossiping over rumors from Bavaria during the last few days, and even before that, the accelerating fragility of the supply lines between the camp and Germany proper was evident to anyone with eyes to see. Whether or not the whispered-of revolution actually comes off, it seems a foregone conclusion that Germany has lost the war.

“If you’re right, then we’ve come through all this alive after all,” Trotter says thoughtfully, gathering up the cards and tucking the deck into his tunic pocket.  

“I suppose you’ll go back to the insurance firm?” Stanhope ventures.

“Well, Mr. Jones _said_ ‘e’d keep my position open at the firm,” Trotter says, “but you never really know, I s’pose. Like as not, ‘e’s found someone else for the spot by now.”

“Too true,” Carter says. “And I’d imagine that being injured like we’ve been wouldn’t help matters any – what good is a traveling salesman who can’t walk all day?”

“That’s just it,” Trotter says gloomily.

“Couldn’t you put in for a desk position?” Stanhope puts in, a little shyly. “They’ve got to have _someone_ keep the books and all that.”

“I could,” Trotter allows, “only I don’t think I’ve got enough of an ‘ead for figures, and Jones knows it. ‘E could give me a kind word if I applied some other place, though.”

“I wouldn’t mind putting in a word or two of recommendation on your behalf,” Stanhope puts in. “As your former commanding officer and all.”

“I’d be in your debt, skipper,” Trotter says. “What d’you think _you’ll_ do once you’re ‘ome again?”

Stanhope is hesitant to answer. “I haven’t thought about it much,” he says. “I’ve just been focusing on making it through the war alive. One day at a time, and all that.”

Carter laughs. “I’ve been doing just the same. Look at it this way, though – once this is all over, the world is your oyster. Once we’ve lived through this, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

“Right,” Stanhope murmurs.

There’s a strange look in Carter’s eyes. One that he does not like at all.

o0o

The armistice comes after all, and Carter, although he has further to go, is quicker than Stanhope and Trotter in making arrangements to go home – which means that he is ready to depart, and comes to say his goodbyes, while Stanhope is still waiting on his orders.

“Stanhope,” Carter says softly. “I hope I’m not interrupting you?”

It’s not as though he has many possessions to pack up, or people to oversee. “Not at all.”

“Excellent.” He puts out his hand to shake, and Stanhope takes it. “Poor as the circumstances might be, I’ve appreciated your company very much.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“I don’t suppose it means anything to you, but – promise me you’ll stay off the booze.” Carter clasps his hand more tightly, looking very serious.

“Whatever for?” Stanhope says, as lightly as he can manage.

“If you don’t, it’ll destroy you, and I’d very much like to see you again some time. In better circumstances.” He smiles, very faintly. “Here’s my advice. You’re still young. Go out, see the world. Forget all this, as best you can. This is the best chance you’ll get to start things over.”

“If it’s just about visiting, I promise that I will,” Stanhope says. For all the bustle around them, he still feels _watched_ , and he doesn’t want to say anything that could be – misconstrued, or reveal his essential weakness of character.

“It’s not just that,” Carter says. “You’ve got a great deal of potential, if you don’t mind me saying so, and – look. I’d appreciate it if you were able to visit, but – humor an old man, at least, and keep in touch. You’ve got my address.”

“Yes,” Stanhope says – like people who have met during a holiday trip, they have exchanged addresses. Stanhope had given his parents’ address for lack of his own.

“Keep in touch,” Carter repeats. That faint smile crosses his face again. “I’ve been sincerely honored to make your acquaintance, sir,”

“And I yours,” Stanhope replies. “Safe travels,” he offers.

“Safe travels,” says Randolph Carter. “Wherever you may roam.”

* * *

BELOVED PHYSICIAN ** **.****

Madge felt ridiculous waiting, pacing at the train station. It wouldn’t make the train come any faster, but it did, she had to admit, make her feel a little better; it helped her organize her thoughts.

__You can’t expect him to be the same as always; think about his letters. Something’s changed in him. The war has affected him. You’ve seen it a thousand times._ _

Except that when she had seen it before, it wasn’t him, wasn’t __Dennis,__ who she had once known, or thought she had known, so well. Whose letters home had first become so odd, and then gradually trickled off to nothing.

His voice on the telephone had sounded so strange – softer than she remembered, with an undertone she could not quite place. And he had said nothing that might have soothed her worries – only that he had received her invitation, and would be only too honored to come and visit. As if he were in school again, coming to stay for the winter holidays; as if no time had passed at all since then, and there had never been a war.

The light was beginning to fade, to take on that weak cast that presages sunset in winter. She ducked inside the little waiting-room, where it was at least a little warmer. For a moment she wished that Dennis wouldn’t come at all, that she could go home and forget having invited him to visit. That she could just go home and get her things ready for work in the morning, and forget -

Oh, __honestly__. There was really no getting around it. She had been the one to invite poor Dennis to visit – her father never would’ve considered it on his own – and she meant to go through with it, for his sake if no one else’s. He might not show it, but it seemed to her that he was really a sensitive creature, at some level of his nature – and how insulted would he be, if he did come, and found no one waiting? No – much as she might wish she were home instead, she would stay.

Not as though home were much more welcoming than this waiting-room, she reflected. Their sitting-room felt dusty and impersonal these days. Like a stage set in the daytime; the furniture arranged as it should be, but without any feeling of warmth or welcoming. At least the waiting-room had a __suggestion__  of life to it.

She checked her watch. Surely the train ought to have come already – but then, trains are late all the time – so there was really no need to worry.

Really she ought to go and wait out on the platform, so that he would see her as the train came into the station. But the wind had picked up again – she could hear it howling around the eaves – and it would cut right through her coat, long before the train even came into sight. Better to stay in here, where the little stove in the corner put out at least some heat.

She forced herself to sit down on one of the high-backed benches. You never see that kind of bench anywhere but a train station – strange, really, to think of one somewhere else. The closest thing is a church-pew.

The cold, even inside, made it hard to really think – hard to put words together in any sensible way. It might almost be better outside, where at least there was the last bit of fading sunshine to make things better.

She had almost dozed off when she heard the train come into the station, but the sound of its approach brought her fully awake.

At once she stood up and hurriedly brushed the road-dust from her blouse and jacket. It had been relatively dry lately – just a little too cold for the snow to melt – and the surface of the unpaved road outside Alum Green was hidden by compacted ice. And yet – dust. It seemed to be a constant in her life these days. 

She hesitated by the door that gave onto the platform, suddenly wishing she’d brought a pair of decent gloves. The skin of her hands was dry, and cracked at the knuckles from overwashing, more like a laundress’s than a nurse’s. She could put on her kidskin driving-gloves -

__Oh, honestly__ , she thought to herself, reproachfully. __You know full well that Dennis wouldn’t notice the condition of your hands in a thousand years. You’re just playing for time, because you’re afraid to see him again after all that’s happened.__

She squared her shoulders and went out.

The sun had finished going down while she was waiting inside; now the platform was lit only by gaslamp, and the whole scene had the cheery, homely look she recalled from childhood holidays.

Madge scanned the platform, looking for him – not many people stopped at Lyndhurst Road, these days, so it wasn’t as if there was a crowd there – and at last she saw him, standing uncertainly at the far end of the platform. He was turned away from her, looking at the departing train as it pulled away. She would have known him anywhere just from the tense way he held his shoulders.

She called his name, and went over to him.

He turned around at once when he heard her voice, and Madge was relieved to see that he hadn’t changed as much as she had feared he would – thin and worn as his face might be, his eyes had the same gentle, thoughtful look as always. If there was something lacking in him now, it was not something physical; not something she could see.

“Oh – Madge.” He sounded surprised to see her; surprised and concerned. “Where’s Doctor Raleigh? He is – all right?”

“He’s fine,” she said. “When I left home, he was in his study; couldn’t spare the time to come down to the station with me. But he said he looks forward to seeing you. We’ve been very busy at the hospital these days.”

“Yes – of course. I’m – glad to hear he’s all right.” There was a new, halting quality to his voice that she did not like – something like a skipping record; probably he was only nervous, though.

“Come on, then,” she said. “Can’t keep him waiting. Is that all you brought?”

He didn’t seem to have any real luggage with him – just a valise that he held awkwardly in his right hand.

“What? Oh – yes. Just this.” He seemed distracted, as though he was waiting for something to happen, for someone to speak. Like an actor waiting for a cue.

“Brilliant,” she said. “Let’s go, then.”

He followed her out to the car, and waited while she started it, without speaking – which was not entirely out of keeping with the strangely taciturn Dennis of the last few years, but was still obscurely worrisome.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on what exactly it was, but there wasn’t any question in her mind: he was not the same as he had been, before the war.

How could he be, after all? Madge knew with certainty that __she__  was not the same as she had been, all those years ago. None of them were, not really. And in a way, it would have been more terrible if he had not changed at all, if he had come home still the tall, eager cadet he had once been -

So she drove home, more cautiously than she would have if she were alone, acutely conscious the whole way of Dennis’s silent presence next to her.

o0o

Her father met them at the door, and greeted Dennis kindly, as if nothing had changed since the time when he would come to stay with them at school holidays. Yet that pretense only made it more obvious how different things really were. Her father standing in the hall seemed to be only half of the scene that was supposed to unroll here: wherever she looked, it seemed there was an empty space where Jimmy ought to be.

Madge had begun to get used to Jimmy’s absence from the house and from her life, but now that Dennis had come, it struck her all over again: he should be here too, should be getting underfoot as he had always used to do. And when she looked around them, as Dennis hung up his coat and chatted diffidently with her father, she missed him more fiercely than she had in months.

It had been one thing when he was still in training – he had never been much further away than an afternoon drive – because the house had seemed to lie quiet in waiting for his return. Most of Jimmy’s things had been tidied away, bit by bit, packed away into boxes so that they wouldn’t have to see them every day.

But as she looked around now, she saw there were still things that reminded her of him, pieces of his life, everywhere she looked; his old green scarf still hung loosely on the coathook by the door, as if he would come downstairs any minute and put it on again. And she knew without looking that one of his jackets still lay folded on the top shelf in the coat-closet; the one that wanted the elbows patched, which she had promised to help him with, but had put off for some future date when she could find the time. She never quite had, and now she supposed she never would, because as long as she didn’t, it would stay as a memory of something he’d asked her to do; she could not look at it without remembering him.

It was all so awfully unfair – the way the dead imposed on the living that way. They came upon you when you least expected them, and it never seemed to get any easier to face them. 

__What would you do if you were here, Jimmy?__  she thought, watching the stiff, awkward way Dennis held himself as he talked. __He was always more your friend than mine. What do I say now?__

“We’re just about to have supper,” her father was saying, “but perhaps you’d like to go upstairs for a moment and unpack your things first.”

“Yes,” Dennis said, “I – think I should like that. Thank you.”

__He isn’t the same,__  she realized. __He really has changed.__  

o0o

Once supper was cleared away, the three of them took coffee in her father’s small library, and, as Madge had thought he might, her father found a convenient reason to leave her alone with Dennis. Which Jimmy would have objected to on principle, she reflected – but then, he wasn’t there to object.

She had been preparing herself for this conversation for some time – as a matter of fact, she had begun preparing for it the last time she had seen Dennis in person. The memory was very clear in her mind; she had seen him off at Victoria station, gone home, and, that evening, startled the life out of her father by announcing calmly, “Father, I’m going to marry Dennis.”

At the time, she had been surprised by how swiftly her father had recovered from the news, and how little resistance he had offered – looking back now, she supposed he must have been expecting it.

It had taken her a long time to recognize and name the way she felt towards Dennis – it had been very strange to realize she saw him as not just a childhood friend, but as someone she loved in a romantic way. Her feelings towards him had grown and changed with the years, and it had surprised her to see what shape they had taken.

That realization had only taken a moment. The problems with it took months to surface. Two of them were of more immediate nature: whether Dennis would come home alive at all; whether he still loved her. There was relatively little she could do, in either case: either he would live and come home, or he wouldn’t. So she had done her best to put her worries aside, and now here he was, sitting by the fire, looking like a man waiting to see the dentist.

All the planning she had done seemed to slip away from her, and it took an act of courage for her to begin to speak. She set down her cup, leaned forward in her chair, and said, “Look, I shan’t beat about the bush any longer. I’ve got a question for you.”

And though the pallor of his face and the haunted look in his eyes disquieted her, she was reassured by the straightforward way he said, “I thought you might - out with it.”

“Dennis,” she said. “Will you marry me?”

He made a stifled sound that might have been a gasp or surprise, or a laugh, and said softly, “Are you serious?”

“ _ _Yes__ , I’m serious,” Madge said. “What on earth is so funny about it?”

“It’s not __funny__ -”

“No, it certainly isn’t - sorry, go on.”

“The only questions people want to ask me, now, are questions about the bloody __war__ ,” he said. “Ah - pardon my French.”

“Pardoned,” she said. “I’m sorry to surprise you with it.”

“It isn’t a surprise,” he said. “Not really.” He hesitated. “I - haven’t got a ring or anything.”

 “Neither have I,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about how this marriage business is supposed to work.”

“I don’t either,” he said. Some of the tension was leaving his shoulders, and his hand seemed to shake less as he took a slow sip of his coffee. “There are - practical concerns, I think. Madge, I’ve - I was discharged on medical grounds, and I haven’t - had the time to find work just yet.”

“You will,” she said. “But I want one thing to be clear - I’m not leaving the hospital. I’m due for a promotion, and I don’t mean to turn it down so I can - go keep house somewhere.” 

She had half-expected him to push back on that - she had it on the expert authority of any number of fellow nurses that men very often did, much as she didn’t think Dennis really had it in him - but he seemed for all the world to be relieved by her saying so.

“Madge,” he said seriously, “I wouldn’t dream of it. What I mean is - I’ve worked out a, a sort of itinerary, a list of places I may be able to get my foot in the door.”

“Yes,” she said, “yes, of course - there’s a beastly lot of fellows looking for work just now, I s’pose.” This was not a line of conversation she’d really prepared for.

“You’re quite right,” he said. “I’m - I don’t mean to leave right away - I’ve got an interview in Southampton on the 27th-”

“We __did__  invite you to stay for Christmas,” she put in, “so you’re not getting away before then.”

“Oh, yes, quite,” he said - he seemed flustered, and there was a faint hint of color rising in his cheeks. “I’ve got the list somewhere,” he said, patting his pockets anxiously.

“I don’t want to see it just now,” she said gently. “What I’d like is for you to answer my question.”

He met her gaze, and his grey eyes were perfectly steady, perfectly focused on her. “Yes,” he said. “I should be honored to be your husband.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "chapter" titles in this and the following chapter are drawn from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. "The fever called 'living' " is a line from his poem "For Annie".


	3. Chapter 3

MSS. FOUND IN A DESK DRAWER.

30 Nov. 1918

Mr. D. C. Stanhope -

I don’t expect this little note to reach you very soon, but I wanted to let you know that I’ve arrived back in the States safely, tho’ I am still “in transit”. I hope that your own journey home is quick & not too snarled-up by the general commotion. Any mail you send to the Boston address I gave you _will_ be forwarded to me sooner or later, but I have given the Charleston address as a post-scriptum below.

Randolph Carter

o0o

23 Dec. 1918

Mr. D. C. Stanhope -

Rec’d your letter of the 14th inst., & hope you remain well. I hear that Dunsany’s new collection has some interesting stuff in it, but have not had the chance to read it myself just yet. In any case, keep on with M. R. James – he is a really fine writer, I think. And tell me what you think of “Count Magnus” when you get through with it.

You really must come visit me some time; I know that New York may not be to your taste, but perhaps S. Carolina would suit you better? Warren sends his regards, says he would like to meet you if convenient. I think we shall remain here for a little while yet, but if it becomes necessary for us to move on, I will make sure I write to you first, & let you know the new address as soon as practicable. Mail does take its time to make its way to us, so don’t think I’ve forgotten you if it takes some time for me to reply.

By the way – haven’t seen hide nor hair of de Marigny since I got back over here, but once he shows his face again I’ll “introduce” you to him, as it were. Probably he is still visiting with family in Louisiana, but he did promise Warren a social call, & de Marigny is not the sort of man to break a promise. Now, who does that remind you of?

Any way. I trust that you have business of your own, so will leave off with that, & I remain

Yr friend

Randolph Carter

o0o

5 Jan. 1919

Mr. D. C. Stanhope -

I hope that the new year finds you in better spirits than the old. I am sorry to hear that you’ve been feeling poorly. If it is possible for you, I recommend a change of scenery. You must not be too hard on yourself when it comes to matters of health, since there is not always a great deal that can be done. Medicine & science have progressed a great deal in our lifetimes, but I do not think they know everything there is to know just yet. There is a great deal in the world that remains out of our hands.

I have been in somewhat of a slump lately, & have yet to pick up the pen to write again, though I have made a few notes that may some day become stories. Nothing seems to make much of an impression on me these days. Perhaps it is this winter weather – I suppose you’ll laugh at that, but the unusual cold has left me rather enervated lately. Even Warren, he who was born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon, thinks I am somewhat melodramatic in this manner. Let him – the fact remains that this chilly fog we’ve been having would sap anybody’s spirits.

Not much news over here, & hopefully not much news over there either. I think it’s likely that this prohibition amendment will pass, as strange as it may seem. Truly we live in an age of wonders, &c., &c.

Still no word from de Marigny, by the way. I proposed to Warren that we go and hunt him down ourselves, given that more likely than not, he is moping around New Orleans at the moment. Warren advised that we wait before doing any such dam-fool thing – very out-of-character for him, I think!

Don’t feel obliged to write back if you are not up to it; the last thing either of us needs is to incur more nervous strain.

Yrs

Randolph Carter

o0o

5 February 1919

Stanhope -

I am sure you’ll be pleased to hear - de Marigny has at last seen fit to favor us with his presence! You’ll notice this letter comes to you from Boston; dear Etienne and I are touring the North East as I promised him we’d do after the war. He has quite pronounced opinions regarding the architecture of the region & its _antiquity,_ which I permit him to express on the grounds that New Orleans has quite enough history of its own to compete with Boston. I suppose you must think it a curious dispute to have, this arguing about centuries , given that even our young land can lay claim to not less than two millennia of human settlement - but it _does_ pass the time.

I understand if other things have come to occupy your time – by the way, did that Brand fellow ever get back to you about that job he was offering? - but I _do_ worry about you when you don’t write back for so long a time. If you wish I wouldn’t write you any more, that’s one thing, but if something is the matter, please let me know – Warren & I do have ‘friends in high places’ in a limited sense, & I’m sure Harley would like to help you – if you’ll have his help.

Well, at any rate, de Marigny & I have a walking tour of Arkham tomorrow morning, and must be on our way post haste. I’ll drop you a line next time I get a chance. I’ve sent this care of your young friend Miss Raleigh; do let me know when you’ve got a stable address of your own, & I will send future missives there.

Yrs

Carter

o0o

21 February 1919

Stanhope -

Back in S. Carolina! Would you believe there was a time in my life when I couldn’t stand the heat? It is a relief to get away from the snow up north; these days I find it brings up the strangest of memories, & none of them pleasant.

Not much to say just yet – will send you my travelog once I get done with it. It is as though I never left, in a sense; earlier today Warren received a tome in the mail that came all the way from _India_ , but it is no use asking him what the fuss about it is.

I hope I am not bothering you with my incessant letter-writing; I trust that I remain

Yr friend

Randolph Carter

o0o

14 March 1919

Stanhope -

Thanks for your reply – I have had to take some time and mull over the particulars of what I wished to write in return, but I’m afraid this is all I have come up with.

I agree with you that there can’t be any real mystery to things which are truly new; true fear comes only from those things whose origins have been obscured by the passage of time. Certainly there _are_ parts of the United States that are still new – to the white man, or at least to his recorded history – but human beings have been living on this continent quite as long as they have lived in Europe.

Of course, they weren’t considerate enough to record all their doings in writing, and there is nothing here like the paintings at Font-de-Gaume or elsewhere on the Continent, but the great funeral mounds of the south-eastern states _are_ damnably suggestive. You might be interested as well in certain more recent discoveries in some of our wild western states – whole towns nestled into caves worn in the sandstone, all abandoned long ago.

In either hemisphere, though, I think that the antediluvian history of Man is very fine material for a writer who wishes to attempt a weird subject – mostly for its combination of mystery with tantalizing detail, as well as the potential for survival of certain _customs_ from that day to this...

Please excuse the lateness of my reply, by the way. Warren is still recovering from his recent illness, and the poor fellow is still quite weak, and I have found myself more than busy just keeping the household together.

Yrs

Randolph Carter

o0o

2 April 1919

Stanhope -

Thanks for those photos you sent with your last letter – I think they’re very good, and Warren agrees with me that you should consider assembling a scrapbook. I’ve enclosed some photos from our recent travels in the hill-country of West Virginia. Most are views of the scenery, but I’ve included one of Warren and I with our host, as well.

God! What a country it is, up there in the heart of the mountains. The forest is positively primeval; it crowds right up to the walls of houses. Our host, Mr. Stanley Watkins, told me in all seriousness that wolves are commonly seen abroad at night, and that there are places where no man will go abroad at night for fear of their predations. _Wolves in the forest_ , in the time of radio waves and mustard gas. It is an atmosphere, and a landscape, straight out of fable, and I half-regretted having to leave it when our business with Mr. Watkins was concluded.

It sounds as though you’ve found yourself in no less distinctive a region; please do continue telling me how you find it. I confess I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Yorkshire. It sounds very picturesque – I imagine it was very lovely, and very wild, in Roman times, and though it must be much scarred by now, I feel some of the old beauty must still show through.

I’m afraid I must leave off at that – but I would be a poor friend indeed if I didn’t say this first: _you must not be so hard on yourself_ . It is more difficult for a young man to get work just now than it has been at any time since the nineties, and I can’t imagine things are any better across the Atlantic. _Do not lose hope._ I have full faith that you will find a position fitting your experience and talent; it may take some time, but things will work out, some how.

Yr friend

Carter

o0o

23 April 1919

Stanhope -

My apologies if you were expecting a longer missive – Warren & I are departing shortly, and I thought it only polite to send a few words before going. Warren is on the track of a ghastly little cult in the backwoods of Georgia, and is hoping to observe certain of their rituals - & if possible interview one of the high-priests regarding certain ceremonial objects that have lately come into Warren’s possession. Just now they will be making preparations for the celebration of _Walpurgisnacht_ , which falls next week. The place itself is quite far from any real civilization, so I shan’t be able to answer any letters until we return home again.

Yrs

Carter

* * *

THE MAN WHO WAS USED UP.

I am not mad. You must understand that before you read any further. I am as sane as I have ever been.

I need you to know this: there was never any future for me, once the war was over. There was no possibility of my survival outside that environment.

You will, of course, want to know why I have chosen to end my life. The simple truth is this: I was never intended to survive until the end of the war. The fact that I did survive was a grievous error, which I have now corrected.

Of course there is more to the story, and now you will ask: what, then, is the full truth?

The answer to that question depends on you - on who you were, and what you meant, to me. Did you know me for long? Do you know where I came from? How much do I need to tell you, to make my intentions perfectly clear, to make you see what I have seen?

What will it take to make you believe me?

o0o

It has become increasingly clear to me that I do not belong here, in this place, in this time. The world that existed before the war, the old world, has now been destroyed. I do not know what form the new world will take, but I know that I do not belong in it. By the time you read these words, it may already have arrived.

If I do not belong in the new world, it is also true that I did not belong in the old one. I did my best to learn its ways and become a part of it, but ultimately I failed.

The war is over, but there is no peace here. Everywhere there is change. People talk of revolution, and I find myself at sea. There may well be a bright new future out there somewhere, but I do not belong in it. I never had a chance.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe me. What matters is that I know what I have written is true.

You can take this for fiction, if it pleases you – the last ramblings of a diseased mind. Man is the story-telling animal, after all. He is most comfortable when he can view his world through the simple logic of the stories he creates. It discomforts him to know that there is no logic in the world at all.

Fiction – all fiction – is Man’s attempt to know that which is fundamentally unknowable. That is the highest aim of life – to claw some scrap of knowledge out of the unforgiving chaos that surrounds us in this universe. Yet if we go too far, if we come to see too much, that knowledge becomes corrosive, and eats away the very structure of the mind. So there is no safe path for us.

o0o

I should be afraid of it. The idea of death should terrify me. I know that there was a time when it did, when I could not bear the thought that someday I would die, when the simple thought that someday I would no longer exist sufficed to pitch me into a blind panic.

But that is no longer true. When I consider the fact that I have come to the end of my life, that I will never hear another human voice, see another human face, I feel only relief. In death I will find peace at last, because I will cease to exist in this world.

The only thing I regret about this is that you have had to find my body, which you probably found uncomfortable. Perhaps you did not expect to find me dead. I pinned a note to the door of this flat as a warning to you. Did you ignore it?

You shouldn’t have much trouble cleaning up, anyway. I have been very careful in arranging my papers for you.

You will find a little money on the table. You ought to use it to pay for my burial.

I apologise for the inconvenience.

o0o

Last night I dreamed of a clean city by the sea – it looked the way that Roman ruins look in holiday photographs, all crumbling white marble and the debris of centuries. Except – when you look at photographs you know that in some manner the scene has been composed for the benefit of later viewers. This city really was as clean and fair as it appeared, dreaming under a hard, hot summer sun, resting in the cast-offs of its own slow decay. And it seemed to me that I knew it, that I had known it when it was young, and that I could come back and live there again, if only I carried out the correct rituals, spoke the right words. I was just about to speak when I awoke, and a feeling of inexpressible sorrow passed over me like a sea-breeze.

I do not think that that city is Heaven. Neither do I think that it is Hell. I do not think it is part of any afterlife, because I do not think any such thing exists. I think it is something else entirely. It is both a beginning and an end, and there are no earthly troubles there.

It is a dead place, that clean and lovely city by the sea, and that is why I find it peaceful. It has been dead a long time. I can see it when I close my eyes - its deserted streets leading down to a peaceful sea, under an eternally-golden afternoon sun - and I know it is a better place than this. It is the only place for me.

That is where I am going, I believe. That is where I belong – that city where the aeons have brought peace and rest rather than chaos and pain. There will be quiet days there, and I will finally find the peace I have been seeking for so long.

I am haunted by the old world, the dead world, and it has become so infinitely tiresome. There is no place where I feel at home, nowhere that has not been poisoned by humanity – even now, as I write, the factory smoke casts a sickly pall over the distant hills and forests.

I seem to see a chaos of fallen buildings where I know that none now stand – all of it ruin and silence, now, and visible only to me. I see crumbling masonry and rotten wood, a wild assortment of different structures, all standing impossibly interknit with each other, like a double exposure. I see the pale faces of the dead all around me, strangers and old friends alike.

Everything is coming to an end. The past casts its long shadow on the present, and I find that I am afraid.

Raleigh is sitting in the corner, now. I have not seen him in some time, but he has not changed from the last time I saw him. There is dirt on his hands, and blood on his face. He is waiting for me. They all are.

I hear them more than I see them, these days, although I never did _see_ them that much – shadows, only, whom I recognised as one recognises people in dreams, when one finds oneself knowing the person without knowing the face. But I _hear_ them everywhere around me. I recall one evening in a train station, waiting with my hands in my coat-pockets, collar turned up against the wind, when I heard Osborne speaking somewhere behind me.

“Of course I would go, if she would only ask,” he was saying, “but the trouble is that she never _will_ ask.” And I turned around at once, only to find that no one was there – only the cold night air, and the snow blowing in the wind.

When they were all alive, I never thought I’d be happy just to catch a glance of them out of the corner of my eye. I took them for granted, then. I found their presence irritating, even.

I am ready to go join them now. It is not that I am getting ready to die. In all the ways that matter, I have been dead for years.

This is just finishing the job.

* * *

CODA.

6 May 1919

Miss Margaret Raleigh,

I am not sure if you know my name; I am writing out of concern for a mutual friend of ours, Captain Dennis Stanhope. I was introduced to him in the German prisoner-of-war camp at Metz, and he spoke quite highly of you then. I have been corresponding with him for some time, but his letters to me have taken an unusual tone lately, and I am, perhaps foolishly, concerned for his well-being. Knowing that he held you in such high regard, I thought perhaps you might know more of his current situation. I do not wish to intrude overmuch on his privacy, but I would very much appreciate your ascertaining that he continues to do well.

Randolph Carter

o0o

May 14 th , 1919

Mr. Randolph Carter,

Thanks for your letter. Dennis has never been a very good letter-writer, but I’m afraid he hasn’t been able to answer any letters recently. He has been ill, but is expected to recover without incident.

Margaret Raleigh

o0o

22 May 1919

Miss Margaret Raleigh,

Thank you for your speedy reply. I appreciate your reassurance as to his well-being. Please do not hesitate to write to me in the future, should his condition warrant it.

Randolph Carter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, _What thou seest, write in a book..._ (Revelation 1:10-11)
> 
> This fic took me just over four months to research, write, and edit. I've done my best to eliminate any glaring historical or canonical errors in the text, but I'm only human and have probably missed some things here and there.
> 
> I repeat my thanks to Tumblr users missanthropicprinciple and mighty-meerkat, without whom this fic would not have happened.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
>  
> 
> [Now with supplemental material!](https://too-much-in-the-sun.dreamwidth.org/4921.html)


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